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“…Pray for Your Children, Quiet Don!”

The exhibition “…Pray for Your Children, Quiet Don!” dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War runs in the Excursion-Exhibition Centre “People’s House” from November, 14.

The exhibition opening ceremony was joined by the local residents, war veterans and young people. A.M.Sholokhov, Director of the Sholokhov Museum-Reserve said that the exhibition project had had a successful run in the State A.S.Pushkin Museum in Moscow and it was decided to show it in the homeland of M.A.Sholokhov, where the descendants of the First World War heroes live.

The First World War has been largely forgotten, and for the new generations of Russians it has turned to be unknown. This war was overshadowed by the Revolution, Civil War and then by the Second World War. For the Soviet Russia it was an alien war, it was avoided to be remembered, though it was her people who fought there, who made feats of arms and died as heroes.

Many Don Cossacks did not return to their villages and stanitsas being left unburied on battlefields in distant foreign lands. Their relatives and friends remember them and keep their photos to hand to their descendants as dear relics.

In his novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” M.A.Sholokhov was wonderfully precise to depict the scenes of the First World War and the inner state of a person participating in it. Realistic description, historical veracity and reliability of the events make the artistic text a documentary narrative.

The exhibition displays over 200 items of the Museum-Reserve collection: photos, letters, medals and breastplates of the First World War, postcards and popular prints picturing Don Cossacks and their feats of arms, munitions, weapons, ammunition, painting and graphic works by the famous artists.

The opening ceremony included performance of the songs which Don Cossacks sang in the intervals between the battles at the fronts of the First World War by the folk song and dance group “Donskoye Siyaniye” directed by A.V.Chudin.

The exhibition runs until March, 1, 2015.

Irina Koveshnikova